


Staring Down The Righteous Road

by Lonov



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Dirty Talk, M/M, Praise Kink, Rimming, broken boys having filthy sex, light suicidal ideations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-15 01:49:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2211171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lonov/pseuds/Lonov
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Steve wanted to say that, to say, "Bucky, you’re perfect," except he couldn’t talk over the dick in his mouth, and he wasn’t sure Bucky would appreciate it, anyway.</i><br/> <br/>Steve is a little fucked up. Bucky is a lot fucked up, drunk with despair, and completely filthy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Staring Down The Righteous Road

**Author's Note:**

> This work was influenced by [this great blog post](http://hellotailor.blogspot.com/2014/04/captain-america-winter-soldier-part-1.html) and the following quote by Thomas C. Foster:  
> "Everything is about sex... except sex. When [authors are] writing about other things, they really mean sex, and when they write about sex, they really mean something else."
> 
> This is the 80% porn, 100% plot fic I have always wanted to write.
> 
> The title comes from Lewis and Clarke's beautiful song ["We Think We Have Eyes," ](https://play.spotify.com/album/7sgypEpmUXup9v4XX2lsPD) which I highly recommend listening to while reading.
> 
> A huge thanks to Nikki for the beta work!
> 
> And on a final side note, when I'm sad I come on AO3 and check for comments. They make me happy. So if this story makes your day a little better, let me hear about it :)

The problem wasn’t that Bucky was irreparably broken, or that he was going to stay the Winter Soldier forever. With the help of S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors and psychologists, he’d managed to return, mostly, to himself. His memories weren’t fully restored, and he was prone to violent outbursts and nightmares, but neither of those were the problem, either.

The problem wasn’t that Bucky didn’t remember himself. It wasn’t even that he didn’t remember Steve, because the one time Steve was allowed in his room, recognition slapped Bucky in the face and he howled, loudly, until his doctors came to usher Steve out. Even his role as Captain America wasn’t enough to convince them to let him see Bucky again. He got no special treatment, so for once that wasn't the problem.

The problem was that Bucky wanted nothing to do with him.

Steve had prepared for Bucky’s release over the past year he'd been in S.H.E.I.L.D. custody. There was already space for Bucky to sleep in his guestroom, a dresser full of new clothes, and a growing collection of books and movies published over the past seventy years, which Steve intended for them to get through together.

Steve wasn’t particularly worried about how Bucky would be changed, because he would still be Bucky, and that was enough. Anyway, Steve had changed, too, since Bucky had fallen into that icy river. He hoped Bucky's presence in his life again would help him sort out the thousand-pound anvil of guilt that sat heavily on his chest, aching every time he saw Bucky’s metal arm through the one-way glass wall in his room at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.

Steve was ready for Bucky to come back into his life. But Bucky, on the day he was finally cleared to leave headquarters, walked right past Steve in the waiting room and was out the door before Steve realized what was happening.

"Bucky!" Steve called as he chased him down the street.

A sleek, black S.H.I.E.L.D. car waited to take Bucky away. He didn't acknowledge Steve running after him, and didn’t look up until Steve blocked him from shutting the car door.

He didn’t meet Steve’s gaze. “I don’t think we should see each other right now.”

Steve’s breath caught in his throat. “But you’re my best friend,” he said, as if that was enough.

“I can’t have a best friend,” Bucky said, slowly, as though Steve were stupid. It was a voice he’d never used on Steve before, even when he was thin and weak. “I kill anything that comes near me.”

“You—that’s not true.”

“It is,” Bucky said coldly, and he looked Steve determinedly in the eye. “You should go.”

Stunned, Steve backed away from the car. He was too used to doing whatever would make Bucky happy, satisfied, comfortable; his brain followed Bucky’s request before he had time to think it through. If Steve hadn’t been so shocked by Bucky’s refusal to see him, he might have been prepared to track him away from S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.

Instead, he watched the door slam in front of him and stared ineffectually after the car as it drove away. He couldn’t help feeling that same lack of control that gripped him the day Bucky left for Europe in 1942.

*******

"He’s probably still in shock,” Sam said the next day. He sat on an armchair in Steve’s apartment while Steve frowned heavily and fiddled with his fingers.

“He said he kills anyone who comes near him.”

Sam shrugged. His eyes seemed to say,  _He does_.

“He doesn’t anymore,” Steve said defensively, wounded.

“Neither do you,” Sam said. “But that doesn’t stop you from blaming yourself for every American soldier that falls.”

Steve pursed his lips. They'd had this conversation before. “It was supposed to end after World War II. That’s why we were fighting. That’s why Bucky—” his breath hitched. “That’s what we fought for, to end war. No one would ever do this again, we thought. But all that destruction and people are still blowing each other up.”

“What you did wasn’t for nothing,” Sam said, possibly for the hundredth time. “You saved a lot of people. So did Bucky.”

Steve sighed. “He did save people. I wish he would understand that. He thinks he’s a killing machine, but he isn’t.”

Sam stared at him for a long moment. “You two need each other.”

“Tell him that.”

“Sure. I’ll call him up right now. Lord knows he won’t talk to you, his best friend, but me? He’s probably been expecting me. Probably wants to have this same conversation we’re having right now.”

Steve’s brow furrowed. “Why would he want that?”

Sam just shook his head and stood to put his sneakers on. “We should go for a run,” he suggested. “Get away for a while.”

Steve didn't object. After all, that was what he wanted most.

*******

"You can't expect him to act normal after what he did," Natasha said. "One year with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s psychologists isn't going to erase the past several decades. Probably not even the little he remembers of them."

Steve had come to her for advice to avoid Sam's cryptic messages. Mostly she was telling him to leave it alone, which they both knew was useless.

"You're his best friend," she added. "He almost killed you. Maybe he feels too guilty about that to see you right now."

"I almost killed him, too."

Natasha regarded him carefully. "You did what you had to do."

Steve had done what he had to do, that time on the helicarrier. But before that, above an icy river, he hadn’t. And Steve could never forgive himself for that. "I could have gone after him."

"And done what? There was no way you could have known he would make it, Steve."

Steve frowned. It was a debate he had anew with himself every night, struggling with facts and feelings as he lied awake in bed.

"There was no way you could have known what would happen to him," Natasha repeated.

"I should have. He's my best friend."

Natasha sighed. "Then keep doing what you have to."

Steve did.

*****

He tried every way he could think of to pursue Bucky, but after S.H.I.E.L.D. denied him access to the location where he was staying, Ssteve's efforts began to feel useless. He had no doubt that Bucky had S.H.I.E.L.D.-sponsored housing so they could monitor him at all times—but they wouldn't give that information away, not even to Captain America. Even Tony Stark refused to help, on the grounds that, while he was all for the invasion of privacy, he had things to do that didn't involve pissing off an infamously lethal Soviet-trained assassin.

"If he doesn't want to be found, he doesn't want to be found," Stark said. He purposefully turned away from Steve's desperation, but his voice turned more gentle than Steve had ever heard it. "Now, why don't you run along and find normal friends like a good little super soldier?"

"You always break into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s databases," Steve said, mouth full of lead. "This isn't any different."

"That's where you're wrong. It's very different." His voice hardened. "You're destroying yourself. We all see it."

"I'm not," Steve said, because no one was supposed to know that.

"You told Maria Hill to blow up the aircraft," Stark said, "while you were on it."

Steve froze. "So?"

"So you weren't on the brink of death. You would have lived with the right medical attention." He considered, "And with Stark's outstanding medical technology, of course. But you asked her to shoot the aircraft down, because you wanted to die."

Steve had never heard it said out loud before, that thing he was feeling. It had never been put in such blunt terms. It had never been acknowledged.

_You wanted to die._

Steve didn't know what to say to that, so he left without a word, feeling very small in his skin.

******

When Steve was growing up, no one talked about suicide. It was a plague that spread through New York like wildfire during the Depression, but not something discussed above whispers until it was too late. If Steve had voiced what he felt now, he would have been carted off to Bellevue and given electroshock therapy.

Not that Steve had ever worried about it before the serum—even at his lowest points, when his mother passed, or he thought he might die from illness, or the army wouldn't accept him, the only thing Steve ever wanted was more time. More time with his mother; more time to grow and learn and draw; more time with Bucky.

But his mother was gone. He could take his health for granted now. And Bucky...

Bucky.

He still wanted more time with Bucky, and he still wanted to help America. He thought he had, during the war; he thought he was saving the world. He couldn't imagine that he was only stalling, keeping it from destruction for another decade or two. If he had known... well, Steve would have fought anyway, because that was what he did. But he would have shared that secret with Bucky and kept him out of battle, so he wouldn't have died for nothing. So he wouldn't have come back as a puppet for the other side.

There was an endless list of things Steve wanted to tell Bucky, about movie references and modern science and this weird new art movement where someone sticks a blank canvas on the wall and gets paid a million dollars for it.

There was an endless list of things Steve wanted to tell Bucky, but whenever he tried to write them down he couldn't get past the first line on the page.

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

******

It was starting to really panic Steve, the idea that he was never going to see Bucky again. Two weeks had passed since he had left the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, and Steve still hadn't heard anything from him.

Desperate for any sort of condolence, he set out for the old diner they used to frequent in Brooklyn, still standing after all those years.

It was run down now, a crumbling establishment with uncomfortable seats and a cook that should have retired a long time ago, but it was one of the only places in the city that felt like home. A burnt burger was worth the warm nostalgia Steve felt when he walked through the door.

Every night featured the same middle-aged waitress, and by now she recognized Steve, not as Captain America but as a regular customer. Perhaps that was the other reason he kept coming back.

"You should’a called ahead. I wouldn’t have given your table away,” she said, voice scratchy from a lifetime of cigarettes. Steve assured her it was fine. He hadn’t thought to call ahead, mostly because the number of patrons here when Steve came by in the middle of the night could be counted on one hand.

He did have a favorite table, though: it was the one he and Bucky had always sat in, back before the war when he was terribly vulnerable and Bucky wasn't, but Steve wasn’t overly concerned with staking a claim on it.

“That’s okay, ma’am,” he started to say, but the words died in his throat when he looked in the direction of his usual seat.

There, sitting at his table, was a lone man with shaggy black hair. His back was turned to Steve, but there was no doubting who it was. Even after seventy years unconscious and those severe, deadly changes in the body in front of him, Steve recognized him.

“I know him,” Steve said, clearing his throat. “I’ll sit there.”

With a shrug she handed him a menu and slipped back behind the counter. Steve walked to the booth in what felt like slow motion.

“Bucky,” he said, and that dark head snapped up. Steve took a seat. He'd run through what he would say when he finally saw Bucky so many times, but now that he was here it all seemed ridiculous. Everything he wanted to say would only scare Bucky away.

Steve decided on a safe conversation. “The food isn’t what it used to be."

Bucky looked at him with dead eyes. “Nothing is what it used to be.”

A sudden urge to defend the century struck Steve. He didn’t love this century, either, didn’t like how the movies all faked explosions, and the museums all faked art.

But Bucky—who had reassured Steve that things were better than they seemed even in the grit of France during the war, who looked now like he hadn’t slept in days and didn’t trust a soul—deserved better.

So Steve thought back to all the nights he spent awake convincing himself of the redeeming qualities of modern America.

“It’s not all bad,” Steve said. “I mean, Brooklyn looks a lot better than it used to.”

It was true. What had been a dank, dark splash of poverty had developed into a community of bohemian artists and budding families.

When Bucky didn’t respond, Steve tried again. “And everyone has a lot more… things now. It’s nice not having to wear the same dirty shirt every day.”

“Stop,” Bucky said.

Steve shut his mouth.

The waitress came to take his order, and was almost knocked over when Bucky, with more force than needed, instead stood to leave.

“Don’t,” Steve said lamely, rising from the table after him, because he’d finally found Bucky and he wasn’t about to lose him now.

Bucky shook his head and walked away.

The waitress knew enough to leave it alone. Steve wasn’t so smart. In desperation, before Bucky could get too far, he grabbed his arm.

It was the metal arm, and it was a mistake.

With strength and speed Steve should have anticipated, Bucky seized the hand on him and used it to flip Steve onto his back.

From the dirty floor of his favorite shitty restaurant, Steve finally saw the reality of the situation. His back ached from its connection to the ground. Before he could lift himself up off the floor, Bucky was walking away again.

He was heading for the bathroom. Without thinking, Steve followed after him.

He wasn’t sure what to say now, or what to do. Even as he stood in front of Bucky in the single bathroom, he couldn’t get his tongue to work.

Bucky was hunched over the sink, skin taut and jaw clenching, as he watched Steve through the mirror.

This was him supercharged in a way Steve had never seen him.

When they were young, Bucky would get a similar energy about him—it happened if there was a new science exhibition in town, or Steve felt well enough to escape onto the roof of their building so they could holler at the whole city—but back then it always felt like Bucky wanted to fly. He would act boisterous and electrified, like he was convinced that if he could just yell loud enough and jump high enough, he’d grow wings to take him into the air.

It was different now. Like he still wanted to grow wings, but only so he’d have something new to shred in his fists.

"What?" Bucky snapped, fingers curling on the sink, eyes almost as black as the Winter Soldier's. "You want something from me? Everybody wants something from me. They broke me into little pieces and they still want more."

Steve stared at him. It wasn't like he could lie: he did want something from Bucky. Those scattered pieces Bucky talked about were begging to be put back together, and Steve thought he could do it. He needed to do it, to save Bucky, because in Steve’s whole life Bucky was the only thing that really mattered, and Steve had to show him his worth. He was no hero if he couldn’t even save his best friend.

Steve studied Bucky’s wary expression, cataloging the sharp blue eyes and delicate nose that were so familiar to him, and the tense muscles and hollowed cheeks that were not.

This new Bucky was the old one but shattered like a mirror on the floor. Steve couldn't pretend he didn't see himself in the reflections.

"I wanted to die," Steve said.

The thin line of Bucky's lips softened slightly.

"I would have killed you." He said it like it was a gift.

"I would have wanted you to," Steve confessed. "I gave Hill the signal to shoot the aircraft out of the sky. I wanted to go up in smoke."

"But you didn't," Bucky said, slowly.

"You were on the plane.”

They stared at each other. Bucky's pulse leaped in his neck. He took a step closer, just inside Steve’s personal space, but he didn’t look braced to fight; instead, he looked desperate.

He said, "I deserve to die. You shouldn't have saved me from the rubble."

A lump formed in Steve’s throat. Hearing this from the person he cared about most in the world felt like his heart was breaking. "You’ve saved me enough times."

"That wasn't—" Bucky swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing like it was trying to break the surface. "That was before. We were different. I was good. You were... smaller."

"I'm still small, Buck," Steve said, and he reached a hand out.

"You don't know me," Bucky whispered, voice cracking. But for once he didn't glare, and he didn't break Steve's outstretched fingers. "I'm no good."

"Me neither."

Bucky snorted. "You're Captain America."

"You killed people,” Steve said abruptly.

Bucky's brow furrowed.

"So did I,” Steve admitted.

His hand was still in the air, waiting. After a moment, Bucky grabbed it.

"You killed people," Bucky repeated, like he was processing it, and he tugged Steve closer. They were molded together, chest to chest, and Steve could feel the hard lines of Bucky’s muscles against his own. He could see the insistent jumping of Bucky's pulse. "You hurt people. You destroyed families."

The cold metal of Bucky's arm sent a jolt through Steve. It was the same frigid temperature of the snow outside Hydra's train. "I let my best friend down. You saved me from the Potomac River. But I didn't save you when you fell."

" _You_ —" Bucky choked in disbelief. This close, Steve could feel the heat of Bucky’s breath brush over him. It offset the chill of his metal fingers, and filled Steve’s body with warmth.

"Everyone thinks I can save America, but I couldn’t even save my best friend," Steve continued, because Bucky didn't seem able to finish his thought. Tentatively, he stroked a hand up Bucky’s shoulder. "I pretend to be good, but I'm not."

Bucky’s eyes widened. Through the fabric of their pants, Steve felt his dick twitch.

"People think I'm perfect," Steve admitted, body tense and skin growing ever-hotter with arousal, "because they haven't seen what I've done."

"You aren't perfect," Bucky breathed. "You've never been perfect. You're like me." His dick jumped again.

"I'm exactly like you, Buck," Steve said, leaning his face closer and speaking against Bucky's lips. "Exactly like you."

Their lips met in a kiss charged with electricity, as Bucky shoved them back against the filthy bathroom wall.

"Want you to fuck me," Bucky said, frantic. Steve cursed, eyes shocked open; this close, he could see every contour of Bucky’s face. He looked vulnerable. "You want to fuck me, Steve?"

It was the first time he had called Steve by his name since he'd been back.

Steve had been waiting for it. He thought things would change when Bucky said his name, like that one word coming out of Bucky’s mouth was going to somehow erase the past seventy years for both of them. Like it might bring brightness back into Bucky’s eyes, or teach him again how to smile the way he did in 1942.

It didn’t. But his eyes did hold a faint spark of light, a wary shimmer of what they used to be.

He was so empty. Steve wanted to fill him up.

“Yeah, Buck,” he breathed, hands lacing in Bucky’s messy hair. “I’m gonna fuck you.”

Bucky whimpered. His arms gripped Steve harder, as Steve pressed him against the wall.

They kissed like starved men, rough and frenzied against each other, limbs tangled in a tight knot that only uncurled when Bucky guided Steve’s hand down to his crotch. A thick, dark layer of cargo pants covered his lower half. They were the same pair of pants he wore as the Winter Soldier, and Steve wanted to rip them off with his teeth.

He settled for using his hands, yanking the zipper down and shoving them around Bucky's ankles. Bucky undid Steve's, too, and stared down in awe, like he couldn't believe it, shaking hands tracing the sparse blond hair on his thighs.

There was a moment where they stood silently, motionless, confused, because this wasn't where either of them thought they would end up. Two 20th century men fumbling together in a 20th century diner bathroom, years after they were both supposed to be dead and the restaurant should have closed down, doing things Steve hadn't even dreamed of when Bucky was still winning all his fights for him.

Even back then Steve had wanted Bucky, but he hadn't known how or why or what it really meant. He hadn't known what to do so he ignored it, and kept ignoring it, right up until he discovered modern porn.

It was unlike anything Steve had been exposed to before. At first it was shocking. He spent more time than he would ever admit researching the intricacies of gay sex. At the time, he couldn’t help thinking that it was teaching him a thing or two about what he could have done with Bucky then. What he could do with Bucky now.

But watching porn was hardly practice.

“I don’t know what to do,” Steve said, a little desperately, because he was terrified of being bad at this. He wanted to be good for Bucky.

Bucky said, “You’re gonna take your prick and put it inside me,” and then he turned around, face to the wall, and rubbed his ass against Steve’s hard cock. Steve groaned. “You’re going to fuck me so I feel it for days. Every time I take a seat I want to think about how good you are.”

Steve sucked in a breath too quickly. “No.”

Bucky’s face twitched toward him. “Steve,” he said. “I need you to.”

Steve had watched a lot of porn; he knew the lingo. So he said, “I want to blow you.”

Bucky gasped.

“Turn around,” Steve said.

He did. Steve crouched down, so he was eye-level with Bucky’s cock. He ran his fingers through the dark hair and it jumped toward his hards.

“You don’t have to,” Bucky said. Steve ignored him. “I don’t need it,” he tried again.

Steve wasn’t sure Bucky knew what he needed. Rather than ignore him again, Steve answered by covering the head of Bucky’s cock with his mouth.

Bucky said, “oh,” like he’d been watching Steve eye his prick for a while but he still hadn’t expected this.

Steve still wasn’t sure what he was doing, even with the taste of Bucky on his tongue. His lips seemed to have some idea, covering his teeth and allowing his tongue room to lick over the slit. Bucky’s prick grew impossibly harder in his mouth, filling it so there was barely room for Steve to breathe.

Easily he could have slid back, taken a moment to gasp for air before sucking it down again, but when Steve looked up and saw Bucky’s face, he knew he wouldn’t. He’d rather suffocate right here, mid-blowjob, on the bathroom floor of an old diner, than deny Bucky even one moment of pleasure. Saliva dripped down his chin as he struggled to get as much of Bucky into his mouth as he could, and even as he choked on the length he wasn’t positive this was really happening. It was too surreal. Too perfect.

He wanted to say that, to say, “Bucky, you’re perfect,” except he couldn’t talk over the dick in his mouth, and he wasn’t sure Bucky would appreciate it, anyway.

All too soon Bucky was pulling him off, with a broken sentence about wanting to come when Steve was inside him.

“Whatever you want,” Steve rasped, voice raw, and Bucky looked like he might be having a stroke.

“Whatever I— _Steve_ —” he tried, all jagged edges, until finally he seemed to decide that talking wasn’t the best course of action. He pushed Steve back until he had enough room to turn around again.

“Just do it,” he said, rubbing his ass against Steve’s cock. “Come on, I’m ready.”

“Where’s the—slick?” Steve asked. “For lubrication.”

“Don’t need it.”

“Bucky, yes. I’m not fucking you without it,” Steve said. “I won’t hurt you. I can’t hurt you again, Buck, please.”

Bucky huffed, annoyed, but he reached into his pants, now around his ankles, and grabbed a tiny bottle of lube.

“You carry that around with you?” Steve asked.

“I’m fucked up,” was all Bucky replied.

Steve stared at him. That wouldn’t be right, if Bucky was fucking other people. It would be all sorts of wrong, and also unfair, and probably enough for Steve to punch a civilian.

“It’s vitamin E,” Bucky said, reading the tension in Steve’s face. “Supposed to heal scars.”

For a second, Steve said nothing. Then he put his fist through the wall with the loud, sharp cracking of plaster.

Bucky stared at him.

“Let me put it on you,” Steve choked, because his cock was already softening at the thought of Bucky's wounds. “I can rub it over your scars. Like you used to do to me, remember, with that elixir when we were kids—”

“No.” Bucky’s voice was cold. He turned to face the wall again. “I already told you how you can help, Steve, so put your fucking fingers in my ass and shut up.”

Steve shut up, his jaw snapping shut with an audible click. Bucky was still too much of a ghost to risk pushing him away again.

He took the bottle from Bucky, opened it, and poured the cool liquid into his hands.

“Okay, okay,” Steve said gently. “I’m going to do it now.” He pressed a finger inside that smooth, tight hole. It was absolutely enrapturing. When his finger slipped past the initial ring, they both gasped.

Steve would have taken it slow had Bucky not been howling at him to give more, faster, harder. He slipped a second finger in, and then a third, moving them back and forth unsteadily. He was nervous—he was Captain America, had faced scarier foes without blinking an eye, and yet _this_ made him nervous—but he was determined. He ignored Bucky’s demands to  _do it, just fucking do it, put your cock in me, I can fucking take it,_  and instead took his time, finding the spot that made Bucky cry out when he curled his fingers. By the time he lined his cock up against, Bucky was a shaking mess of desire.

“I’m ready,” Bucky said, desperate, as Steve rubbed the head of his prick along Bucky’s hole. “Please.”

He didn’t need to ask again; Steve could hardly wait any longer. His cock was ready to explode all over Bucky’s ass before he even got inside, and he was sure Bucky would never forgive him for that.

“Fuck, yeah,” Bucky moaned as Steve pushed in.

“Oh, gosh,” Steve said, and he stopped moving before he came too soon.

“Don’t stop,” Bucky begged. “You can’t, please, I  _need_  you. Fill me up, take me good, make me good again,  _please_.”

Steve did fill him up. With a long, low gasp he slid his cock in until it bottomed out. His arms gripped Bucky’s hips, keeping him in place as Steve fucked his tight, hot hole. He never thought it would be like this between them, all aching need and desperation, but it made sense: they had both been hurting for so long. At least now they could ache together.

“That’s it, yeah,” Bucky said. “Yeah, Steve, come on, don’t hold back. Don’t hold back now, but don’t—don’t hurt yourself, pal—”

“Oh, gosh,” Steve gasped, flattening Bucky against the wall as he pushed them closer together. He could see Bucky struggling to jerk himself off with the little space he had. “You feel amazing.”

Bucky whined low in his throat, shoving himself back onto Steve’s cock. “God, yeah, I’ve wanted this forever.”

Someone knocked on the door.

“Fuck off!” Bucky yelled, voice strained as Steve pounded even deeper inside him.

“Oh, gosh, Bucky, I’m coming,” Steve gasped. “Gonna fill you up, make you see—you’re so good, Bucky.”

Come splattered over the bathroom wall as Bucky came first. His ass clenched Steve even more tightly, so warm and safe, and Steve cried out. His vision went white, searing hot as he came, fingers curled over Bucky's hips so hard any normal person would have yelled in pain.

When the room stopped spinning he pulled back, wincing at the friction around his spent cock. Bucky still faced the wall, chest heaving against the dirty tiles.

“That was,” Steve began.

The look on Bucky’s face shut him up. He laughed bitterly. “What?  _Good_? Like me, right?”

“You are,” Steve said. That flicker of light in Bucky’s eyes had disappeared now, and they were right back at the awkwardness when Steve had first seen Bucky at the diner. How could he have thought this was going to fix things between them?

Steve felt like an idiot. His heart was breaking. Gently, he said, “You are good, Bucky.”

Bucky grimaced. "I’m not. I’m a fucking tragedy. I’ve done so many bad things I don’t even  _remember_. How can someone murder people—hundreds of people—and not even remember who they were, like it doesn’t matter at all? It does matter. It  _matters_.” His voice cracked, and Steve thought he might too, but then a mask fell over his face. “You think I’m worth something, but I’m not. Thanks for the fuck, though. It’s more than I deserve.”

Steve’s chest ached. “More than you deserve? Bucky, you deserve so much more than—”

But Bucky wasn’t listening. He had backed away and put his pants on. He said, “I thought this would help, but it didn’t.”

“Let me help,” Steve begged.

“You do enough,” Bucky said, voice empty. “You help people all the time. You’re the great American hero.”

“That’s not—”

“I would have killed you.” Bucky said, voice empty. He gestured to the room around them. "And now this is what I'm worth. A filthy fuck in a bathroom."

Steve tried again. "That's not—"

"True?" Bucky said with a self-deprecating smirk. "But isn’t that why you’re here, too?"

It was. But Bucky was better than that.

“I’m here because I missed my best friend,” Steve said.

“I’m not your best friend anymore.”

“But I need you to be,” Steve said, voice cracking.

Bucky’s grimace fell, and his lips parted. He took a step forward. “You need me? Like… like you used to?”

Steve nodded.

“I…” he seemed at a loss, warring with himself. Dejectedly, he said, “Steve, I can’t be what you need.”

Steve wanted to close the distance between them. He wanted his lips back on Bucky’s, with gentleness this time instead of desperation. There was all this love inside him, and it all belonged to Bucky.

When there was no Bucky, Steve loved nothing. Right now he was so close to bursting with emotion that he could barely breathe. Most of him still didn’t understand what was happening. The part that did wanted to grab Bucky and never let go.

But Steve didn’t know how to put that into words. So he just said, “You already are.”

Bucky sighed. “If I could have friends, you'd be my best pal." He was backtracking now, silent steps toward the bathroom door. His hand was on the doorknob. "I don't know who I am, Steve, but I know I'm not who I used to be."

Steve opened his mouth to speak, but Bucky interrupted before he could start.

"Let me guess: how could I know that if I don't remember who was? You’re predictable." He gave a bitter smile. "Before 1942 I never killed anyone. You and my country, those were the only things on my mind. Now when I walk into a room I scan for weapons, see what could be useful in a battle." He gestured a thumb toward the rest of the diner. "Out there are three antique knives on the wall that could slit a throat with enough power. The silverware is dull but it could still break the skin. Above the register, that proof of health inspection certificate is in a glass frame; smash it on the counter and the shards could kill."

Steve said, "The table isn't bolted down. Could knock a few guys out throwing it."

Bucky stared at him.

"You're not the only one who went to war," Steve reminded him.

"I've been at war," Bucky growled, "since 1942."

Before Steve could even think of a response, Bucky was gone. One moment he was standing there, hand on the doorknob like a trigger, and then Steve blinked and he was alone. The bathroom door creaked on its hinges.

Steve looked around the restaurant, though he knew it was pointless. The only people he could see were a few unsatisfied patrons and the waitress, purposefully looking away from him.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had tracked the Winter Soldier down for fifty years, and they hadn’t caught him until he turned himself in.

Steve didn't bother going after Bucky. He’d tracked him for six months after the helicarriers had crashed, and he never even found a tail. If Bucky hadn’t turned himself in, malnourished and nearly insane with confusion, Steve probably wouldn’t have ever found him.

Even if he went after Bucky now, he wouldn’t find him. This was all on Bucky’s terms.

Steadily thinking of anything except the past hour, Steve walked home.

******

“Dude,” Sam said. “Too much information.”

Steve sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure out what I should do.”

“Well he left, right? Sounds like you should give him space.”

Steve’s jaw clenched the way it did right before a battle. “He’s my best friend.”

“I thought he said he couldn’t have friends.”

“He also said he was worthless, and he acted like it’s his fault he can’t remember what he did, or that he even did it in the first place, instead of the fault of the people who turned him into a weapon and made him forget his own name. He’s not in the right state of mind.”

"Maybe it's just a different state of mind," Sam said, "from the one you remembered."

Steve shook his head. "No. He needs help."

A hopeful look crossed Sam's face, like this was the direction he wanted the conversation to go. "What makes you say that?"

"Because," Steve began, but stopped.  _Because I need help, too_ , he wanted to say, but that... well, that couldn't be right.

Sam watched him closely for a moment. When it became apparent that Steve wasn't going to finish his thought, Sam sighed heavily.

"You're two sides of the same coin, Steve," he said. "I wonder if Barnes doesn't realize that, either."

Steve frowned. "We aren't that similar. When he killed people it was because it was programmed into him. He couldn't help it."

"So he never killed anyone during World War II?"

Steve's frown deepened. "That was different. It was war."

"You're making a lot of excuses," Sam said gently. "Giving him all those breaks."

"They aren't excuses," Steve defended. "Bucky's a good person."

"I believe you, Steve. What I'm saying is... when was the last time you gave  _yourself_  a break?"

Steve pursed his lips and said nothing.

"You'll figure it out," Sam said after a moment, patting Steve on the shoulder. "You're Captain America. You always have a plan.”

*****

Steve was Captain America. He did not have a plan.

A sizable part of him wanted to do the most foolish option—the one that challenged the notions that Bucky was trained in the art of staying hidden, and Steve was an amateur tracker with too much emotional investment—which was to put on his best civilian clothes and turn over every building in the city to find him.

Bucky had practically done that for Steve once, when they were sixteen and Steve got into the worst fight of his life. The guy was stronger than Steve had anticipated, and Bucky wasn’t around, which meant Steve got knocked unconscious and dumped in a back alley in some dreary part of Brooklyn he’d never even been before. If Bucky hadn’t searched all night for him, checking every street and gutter in the borough, Steve might not have made it home. He’d had a few cracked ribs and two black eyes when Bucky found him. When Steve’s vision cleared he finally saw just how unequivocally in love with Bucky he was.

Not that he told Bucky that, or that he’d ever planned to. Though, in light of Bucky’s recent pleas to get fucked hard and moans of  _I’ve wanted this forever_ , perhaps he should reconsider.

Steve couldn’t think about that night without his breath hitching and his toes curling. It made him more desperate than ever to find Bucky, if only to demand an explanation.

Except Steve wasn’t selfish. Bucky wanted to be left alone, and now that Steve was sure he was safe—or as safe as he could be, considering his state of mind—he didn’t have an excuse to chase Bucky down if he didn’t want to be found. So Steve left him alone for one week, and then another, and another, hopelessly pretending each day without Bucky wasn’t eating away at him.

Most of this time was spent staring at the walls of his apartment. There weren’t any aliens attacking the city, or crazed lunatics trying to take over the world, so he thought that was an okay plan.

Natasha, however, was not on board with it.

“Steve.” She appeared out of nowhere one day, uninvited, as Steve sat in his living room. Steve glanced at his open window with narrowed eyes. He would either have to get a lock or less powerful friends. “You’re moping.”

“I’m not moping.”

Natasha raised her eyebrows and settled gracefully into one of Steve’s armchairs. “I saw Bucky today.”

As hard as he tried, Steve couldn’t feign indifference. He leaned forward. “Where?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.” She said, pointedly, “He sees his therapist for two hours every Wednesday. The session ends at eleven. I think you should go to him, Steve.”

“Sam said I should give him space,” Steve said automatically.

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” Natasha inquired, with an expression that informed Steve she was quite unimpressed. “You’re punishing yourself by not seeing him.”

Steve swallowed heavily. “He doesn’t want to see me.”

“He doesn’t know how to see you. You were best friends, and then he tried to kill you, and he’s not exactly sure how to come knocking on your door now, asking to hang out.”

“It isn’t  _his_  fault that he—”

“He doesn’t think that.”

A shadow crossed Steve’s face. “How do you know all this?”

Natasha held his gaze and said, without emotion, “I made a lot of mistakes, once. They weren’t all by choice, but I still made them. I know how hard it is to move on from that.”

“So you think that by staying here I’m not really doing what he wants.”

“I think both of you know how much you need each other. And the only reason you’re here is because you don’t think you deserve him.”

Finally their gaze broke. Steve’s eyes focused on a small scratch on his wooden floor.

After a moment, Natasha stood. She headed toward the door—the front door this time, because she’d said what she came to say and no longer had reason to sneak through windows. “Don’t do this to yourself, Steve. Wednesday, eleven o’clock.”

Steve didn’t watch her leave. He eyed that tiny spot on the floor and wished he could shrink himself into it until he disappeared completely.

*****

Now that he’d been called out by Natasha, Steve felt like a coward. It was his least favorite feeling, so a week later he entered the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and slipped into the psych unit, trying not to draw too much attention to himself. Either no one was surprised he was there or no one cared; either way, nobody asked questions. Steve guessed they were watching him closely enough on the security cameras that they didn’t need to.

He settled into a chair near the office door, strategically placed so that Bucky would have to walk past him on his way out. Just the thought of him a few feet away sent goosebumps up Steve’s spine.

At 11:05 a door at the end of the hall opened, and Bucky appeared. His gaze was on the floor, which was why he didn’t realize Steve was sitting there until he nearly walked into him.

“Steve,” he said, taken aback.

Steve scrambled out of his seat. “Hey, Buck.”

They stared at each other.

“How was your...” Steve gestured down the hall to Bucky’s his therapist, who was walking towards the exit, presumably on her way to lunch. She passed them with raised eyebrows but said nothing.

“Fine.” Bucky said, ignoring her. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you,” Steve said, because he didn’t have a better excuse and he couldn’t lie to Bucky, anyway. “It’s been a while.”

“A month,” Bucky said tersely. “We’ve been apart for longer, if I remember correctly.”

He looked like he was waiting for Steve to correct him, to fix his poor semblances of memory, like maybe he’d made a mistake. Maybe he didn’t remember anything after all.

 _If I remember correctly_. He remembered. It was more than his doctors had hoped when they’d first realized how damaged his mind was.

“Yeah, we have,” Steve said. “But we always find each other in the end.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. His posture was so stiff Steve thought he might snap in half.

"Who told you I was here?" He asked. Then, "I guess it doesn't matter."

"Natasha," Steve admitted. He tried to keep the hope out of his voice when he said, "I didn't want to chase you down, but... she said you would want to see me."

Bucky grunted, watching Steve with calculating eyes.

A full minute passed in silence. Bucky looked like he had something on his mind. Steve was willing to stand there forever, waiting patiently until Bucky felt comfortable enough to speak. But no amount of time waiting could have prepared him for what came next.

Expressionless, Bucky declared, "I want to get fucked in my therapist's office."

Steve gaped. "Bucky, I don't—"

"You don't want to?" Bucky said, stepping closer, crowding Steve's space like he was still the larger of them, like he still had the power. _Maybe he still does,_ Steve thought, with a glance at his metal arm. "You don't want to bend me over a desk, get my ass all slicked up and open for you? You don't want to fuck me on a pile of papers that detail all the ways I'm fucked up?"

"Bucky," Steve tried, desperately, "You aren't fucked up."

Steve, on the other hand, his prick hardening with every filthy word that came out of Bucky's mouth, was extremely fucked up. There was no way he should want to fuck Bucky in a stranger’s office—on psychoanalytic documents, no less—except perhaps to prove to him who the real fucked up one was.

"You don't want to?" Bucky said, again, and now his face was falling and he was stepping away.

Steve couldn’t bear it. Bucky’s expression was one of a man dead inside, but Bucky wasn’t dead. For a while Steve had thought he was, but then he'd come back, and back again. Now he was alive, and so was Steve, and _goddammit_ , there wasn't a chance in hell Steve was going to let him die inside.

So Steve said, "I want to fuck you with my tongue."

Bucky's eyes widened. "Th-there?"

"There," Steve confirmed, as he guided Bucky to the office door.  He leaned in close to whisper in his ear, "I want the filthiest part of you."

Bucky whined long and low in the back of his throat, and rushed to the desk like he couldn't get there fast enough. Steve was left to figure out the door behind them, which had no lock, so he lifted a nearby filing cabinet and set it heavily in front.

Then he turned and grabbed Bucky by the arms so they were facing each other, even as he pushed him back against the desk.

Slowly, achingly, he crouched down in front of Bucky and mouthed at the fabric of his pants.

"You don't have to," Bucky said, the same way he had the last time Steve had given him a blowjob, as if the idea of doing something entirely for his own pleasure was foreign to him. As if he thought it _was_ only for his own pleasure. Steve was beginning to learn just how much he loved having his mouth full of Bucky's cock, how he enjoyed the thickness on his tongue and, more than anything, how eagerly he responded to every little gasp and moan that slipped past Bucky’s lips.

Just thinking about it made Steve harder.

"I do have to," Steve said, unzipping Bucky's pants and pulling them down. "I need to. I'm desperate for it."

Attendant as ever, Bucky's cock sprang toward Steve's mouth. Steve set his hands on either of Bucky’s hips, careful not to trap him. He needn’t worry: Bucky's eyes were glued to Steve's face and he looked far from running away.

Steve licked over the head of Bucky's cock. He could feel those blue eyes on him as he gathered saliva and began to move. After a few minutes of Bucky’s cock in his mouth, Steve pulled back, ignoring the whine of protest as he used his grip on Bucky’s narrow hips to maneuver him where he wanted.

He wanted him bent over the desk with his ass in the air.

"Beautiful," Steve hummed, massaging the swell of Bucky's ass. Bucky scratched at the desk with blunt fingernails. His metal fingers dug welts into the wood.

Steve parted the cheeks carefully, lovingly, because he wanted to be so gentle to Bucky—which was absurd, because Steve had never been gentle, and Bucky had never wanted him to be, but Steve was starting to think the both of them might need it now, because Bucky's prick leaking precum onto his therapist's papers was absurd, too, and they sure as hell needed that.

Steve had never done this before. When he'd first seen it in porn, he'd been shocked; it wasn't an idea that would have even crossed his mind when he was a young man. Something most people, himself included, wouldn't have even dreamed of in the 1930s.

But now Steve did dream of it. He dreamed of it a lot, actually. Just last night he'd jerked off to the idea of burying his tongue in Bucky's ass, and now the chance was in front of him, and he was nervous. He was worried about screwing this up.

Bucky must have sensed his sudden panic, because he reached out to him. Metal fingers stroked through his hair—too gently, as if afraid of causing pain—and Steve's confidence surged.

After all, he thought, it wasn't like he could let Bucky down further than he had already.

The skin of Bucky's hole was tight and taut. Steve planted a kiss at its center, chaste at first, before he opened his mouth and pressed his tongue inside. His hands came up to hold Bucky's hips down just in time for him to lurch into the table.

" _Fuck_ ," Bucky moaned as Steve closed his mouth over his hole and sucked. He stiffened his tongue and fucked it in and out of Bucky's ass, mouthing along the sensitive edges and getting as far inside as he could. "Fuck, Steve, you're—amazing—you always know—"

Steve replaced his tongue with his finger, tongue skittering around the edge of Bucky’s hole as his finger worked further inside. He pulled his mouth away to speak. "I know you, Bucky."

"You do, you always have." Bucky panted against the table. Steve grabbed a bottle of lube out of his pants pocket—because he'd hoped for this, needed it so much, as much as he hated to admit it—before shedding his pants onto the floor.

He rubbed lubed fingers over Bucky's hole, reveling in each choked moan that escaped his mouth.

Steve said, "I should have asked you to turn around, last time. I wish I had. Kept thinking about how I blew my chance to see you like that."

Bucky's eyes met Steve's. He rolled over on the desk, ignoring the discomfort of the wood as he turned onto his back. A hand came up to tug a lock of dark hair. He looked completely debouched sitting there with his legs parted, cock hard and leaking against his stomach. His face, though, was guarded. "So you could see Bucky's face—my face, when you fucked me. Instead of the Winter Soldier's hair, from behind. So you could pretend."

"Bucky's hair is the Winter Soldier's hair,” Steve said genuinely, reaching up under his shirt to stroke Bucky’s abdomen down to his thighs. If his life weren't so strange already, it would have been weird to talk about Bucky in the third person, despite the fact that he was right in front of him and mostly naked. "But I would have liked to see your face, yeah."

Bucky snorted. "You're so old-fashioned."

On the helicarrier when Steve had tried to convince the Winter Soldier who he really was, the result had been a frenzy of confused violence. Now, after a year with the most successful psychologists in the world and some semblance of a grasp on his identity, Bucky didn't want to be violent anymore. He couldn't be for the sake of his own sanity. But that confused, furious ache was still inside him. It had to come out somehow.

It came out now as apathy and filthiness. That was how Bucky communicated now. Steve thought if he could just duplicate that, he might be able to get through to him. Apathy was the last thing on his mind, the one emotion he had never felt when it came to Bucky or the Winter Soldier—but filthiness Steve could master. Years of ever-mounting sexual tension and a crippling struggle with his identity had taught him all about it.

Steve leaned close, hot breath skating Bucky's ear. "I don't think it's weird that I would want to see the face of the person I'm fucking as hard as I possibly can on a filthy bathroom wall. I don't think it's strange that I would want to see that person's eyes while he dug bruises into my hips and begged for more." He licked his lips. "Actually, it's probably more normal than, say, pretending that person isn't my best friend, and that even if he weren't, it would be my best friend’s face I imagine as I come."

He thought it would get through to Bucky, and he was right. The metal fingers tugging at Steve’s hair stopped abruptly

"Steve," Bucky said, "I need you to fuck me now."

Steve nodded, one fist tangled in Bucky's hair, the other stroking his cheek. "I know you do, Buck. I know you do."

He used gentle hands to part Bucky's thighs, and move his taut body so Steve could align his cock with Bucky's ass and still be able to kiss him.

But more important than anything Steve was doing was that Bucky was letting him.

Steve put their lips together and caressed the inside of Bucky's mouth with his tongue, tasting the coffee he'd had for breakfast and the musky flavor that was Bucky's alone. It was almost domestic, the way he knew what Bucky had drank that morning and the way he'd come to expect the uniqueness of his mouth. He grinned into Bucky’s lips.

Metal fingers dug hard into Steve's back, urging him on, as Steve stuck two fingers inside Bucky.

"Come on already," Bucky moaned. What he meant was  _come on and fuck me already_ , not  _come all over already_ , and Steve knew that, but it was too late.

It wasn't like Steve was trying to ruin the moment by coming before his prick was even inside Bucky's ass. It was just that the thought of them ruining all that paperwork Bucky was on top on—proof of how many people were running their lives and rummaging in their heads—and the sight of him there, and the knowledge that Steve had just stuck his tongue in Bucky's ass—it was all too much.

Bucky stared at him with wide eyes. He said, "Oh."

Steve thought that maybe he should have just died on the helicarrier.

Except—

"That's okay, pal, that's all right," Bucky breathed, and Steve could hardly believe it but Bucky's prick was leaking against him, wetting his hand, harder than ever. "You get too worked up sometimes."

It was true: Steve had always escalated things too quickly, usually fights with strangers, and it always ended badly for him. And Bucky had always been there to help out, never judging except in jest, always looking proud and fond and a little bemused about Steve, which was the same expression he wore now. Like Steve had messed up again, gotten into some fight he couldn't handle and stumbled home injured, and Bucky was ready to swoop in and fix him up and tell him just how great Steve was, even if he couldn't win the fight.

Steve was a bright, humiliated red, and Bucky looked like there was nothing he'd rather do than patch Steve up and comfort him.

Bucky said, "You did so well. The way you made me feel, your tongue in me—you were so good, Stevie."

Steve reached for Bucky's prick, trying desperately to put things to right. "Here, let me—"

He wrapped a spit-slicked hand around his cock and pulled long, smooth strokes. It didn't take long. Steve slipped two fingers into his ass and then Bucky blew his load too, his come mixing with Steve's on the paper-covered wood between them.

Bucky collapsed back against the desk, long dark hair skating out around him. He caught his breath. "Jesus, Steve."

"I know," Steve said, mournfully. "I know. Bucky, I'm so sorry."

"No, I meant—" Bucky said, struggling for words in a way he never had when they were young. He'd always been the eloquent one, before Hydra. Then he'd forgotten his own name, and now sometimes he couldn't remember the simplest words. "That was so good."

"You saying I didn't ruin everything by coming like a damn teenager?" Steve asked ruefully, self-deprecating.

Bucky shook his head. He looked like he was still coming down from his orgasm high, so Steve lazily pulled his pants up and sat in the therapist's chair at the other side of the desk. They were quiet for a long time, Bucky sitting straight up on the desk, silently allowing Steve to carefully trace the contours of his back with artist's eyes, map where the shadows fell over his skin.

Bucky didn't turn to look at him when he spoke, just stood with his back to Steve and rasped out carefully chosen words. "My therapist said it's easier for me to remember the bad times, because they align better with the ideas I have about myself and the world. I can remember the fights we got into, but I don't..." Bucky frowned. He looked guilty. "We lived together, right? I don't remember that. I read it somewhere."

"We lived together, yeah, after my mom died," Steve said. His mouth quirked. "But we probably spent more time fighting than anything else, so that makes sense, actually."

Bucky said, "I was always going after people, huh?"

"You?" Steve said, incredulous. "No way, buddy. That was my gig. I couldn't go to the movies without getting beaten up in a back alley, and I always started the fights. You were only there to help me out."

Bucky's face softened with surprise. "I thought maybe I'd always been... this way."  _This way_  meant virulent and aggressive.

"Bucky," Steve said, "you were the nicest guy in Brooklyn before you took me under your wing."

Bucky looked like he might cry.

"We could go out sometime," Steve said, before he could stop himself. If they spent some time talking instead of just fucking, maybe Bucky's happier memories would start to come back. Or Steve could at least convince him those times existed.

But Bucky twisted away. The air in the room went cold. “Can’t. I have to go,” he said, and he pulled up his jeans.

"Bucky—"

"I'll see you around."

"You don't—" Steve began, but he wasn't sure how to finish that.  _You don't have to go. You don't understand how important you are to me. You don't get to leave me here alone again._

By the time Steve thought he might have a semblance of what he actually wanted to say, Bucky was moving the filing cabinet away from the door like it didn't weigh more than a paper-weight.

This was the way it had always been: Steve started the fights, Bucky finished them.

Feeling a little like his heart was being ripped from his chest, he watched Bucky go.

*****

Steve had never been selfish, but sometimes things change. Despite how heavily the odds were stacked against him, he did go looking for Bucky this time—he went looking all over the city, starting at the diner they first fucked at (where he gave the waitress his number and asked her to please call if she saw Bucky there again), and moving through every place they’d ever made a memory. Most of the buildings had been replaced or remodeled, but he checked them, anyway.

He never forgot who he was up against, and as more and more days found Steve in obscure parts of the city turning up blanks, it became increasingly apparent that he would not find Bucky unless Bucky wanted to be found. At this point, he couldn’t even try to convince himself otherwise. It was like the night Steve first encountered the Winter Soldier, after his attempted assassination on Nick Fury: Steve was chasing Bucky down but coming up with only darkness. Bucky had a way with disappearing, and Steve was no match for someone who could vanish into thin air.

There might have been times Steve did find Bucky, but Bucky, slipping out a nearby window or hiding in the ceiling beams, didn't let him know it. Or maybe Steve hadn't found Bucky at all. It began to feel like his efforts were for naught, as a week of constant searching passed and Steve still hadn't seen Bucky again.

The next Wednesday found Steve back at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters, pacing the floor outside Bucky's therapist's office. But when the session ended a young woman left the office instead of Bucky, followed closely by his therapist, who Steve recognized from last week. She glared daggers at him until, sullenly, he conceded that not only was Bucky not here, but his therapist knew exactly what had happened on her desk.

Naturally, Steve's response was to contact Natasha as fast as possible. Half an hour later she was knocking on his door.

She bypassed a greeting and went straight to, "Rogers, you're obsessed."

Steve frowned, following her into his living room. "I didn't ask you here to judge me. I need to know when Bucky's therapy sessions have been rescheduled to."

"I'm not sure that worked out well last time," Natasha said. When Steve opened his mouth to protest, she waved him off. "They don't actually tell me everything. All I know is that apparently after his last appointment someone broke into his therapist's office and defiled her desk," she gave Steve a knowing look. "So they moved the time and place of his appointments in the hope that it doesn't happen again."

Caught somewhere between embarrassment and indignation, Steve snapped, "That's ridiculous."

"Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D." Natasha said. "Listen, Steve... for all I know, he asked them to change it. Maybe he knew you'd come looking for him there again."

"That doesn't make any sense," Steve huffed, struggling to keep the desperation out of his voice. "Every time he sees me he acts like he's—like he's desperate to see me, like he's been waiting. And then afterwards he runs away. I just—I don't understand."

"He's probably still trying to figure out if he's someone who deserves you," Natasha offered.

Steve recoiled. Of course Bucky deserved him. Bucky hadn’t been the one who let him best friend fall, then left him for Hydra to capture. Bucky had only done what he’d been forced to, and he hadn’t had control over any of it.  If anyone deserved the world, it was Bucky. "What the hell makes you say that?"

She spent a long moment studying his face. "Because, Steve," she said, "I see you doing the same thing."

"That's not—"

"Why do you keep chasing after him?" Natasha asked. "Because you want to see him, or because you want to prove to him—to yourself—that you aren't going to leave him again?"

Steve swallowed heavily. The only sound in the room was his unsteady breathing.

"It's just," he said, voice cracking, "if I'd gone after him when he fell, he might be okay now. I can’t live with myself knowing I didn’t go after him, _again._ "

"He probably wouldn’t be alive now if Hydra hadn't continued experimenting on him, Steve.”

Steve winced. It was that word, _experimenting_ , that he couldn't stand; it even sounded like hissing snakes, reaching inside Bucky and pulling the Winter Soldier out.

Steve snapped, "He wouldn’t have been turned into a walking weapon, either. He wouldn’t have had that metal arm put on and been branded with a fucking Soviet star.”

Natasha said, "None of that is your fault, Steve," for what could have been the thousandth time.

“You keep saying that.”

“I’m waiting for you to believe it.”

Steve sighed. “It’s not just the guilt. It’s—when I’m with him, I feel like I have a reason to live,” his throat tightened, “for the first time since 1943.”

“You should probably get that figured out,” Natasha advised softly. She was even worse at this whole emotional thing than Steve was.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I’m working on that.”

*****

Steve went to Sam, because Sam was probably the least emotionally inept of all his friends.

He started with, “Bucky’s disappeared again.”

Sam sighed and rubbed his temples. “Not too sure why you sound surprised.”

"I'm not," Steve said. "I just wish I knew what he was thinking.”

“Did you go after him?”

“Turned Brooklyn inside out,” Steve admitted. “But he’s better at this than I am.”

“He’s had a long time to learn how to hide.”

Steve didn’t like to think about those years Bucky was alive, when Steve was under ice and not there for him.

Distracted as he was, Steve could recognize the unhappy expression on Sam’s face.

“You think I should leave him alone.”

Sam didn’t answer. Instead he asked, “Steve, do you remember when I asked you what makes you happy?"

Steve shrugged.

"I'm gonna take that as a yes. Do you remember your answer?"

Again, Steve shrugged. He did remember, but it wasn't something he wanted to talk about. Sam was using that tone of voice he only employed at the VA, or when he was trying to convince Steve to get therapy.

"You said you didn't know what made you happy," Sam answered for him. "And, man, I couldn't believe it. I said to myself, this is Captain America, of course Captain America is happy. Then I spent more time around you and I figured, all right, you're a little messed up, but you were under ice for seventy-odd years, so maybe that was normal.

“And then… then we got into that battle in DC, in the middle of the goddamn freeway, and Natasha got shot, you almost got killed by a fucking Soviet assassin, we got arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D.—and you came out of the whole thing fucking  _glowing_. I thought you might be getting off on the battle or something, you know, after all those years in the ice when you couldn't even move, like maybe the adrenaline was hitting you harder than usual." His gaze went to Steve now, eyes more serious than Steve had ever seen them. "And then you said it. You saw your man. You thought you let him die but he was alive, he was here, in DC, probably only a couple of miles away at any given moment, and you were fucking awed by that. I don't even know if you realize how much you changed after you saw him. It wasn't really happiness—but you were so much more alive than I'd ever seen you. It's like when one of my veterans at the VA gets a therapy dog and has his first nightmare-free month. You had that glow, and you had it because of Barnes.”

He leaned back on his couch and eyed Steve carefully. “So do I think it's a good idea for you to keep doing whatever it is that you're doing? Not really. But do I think it's the  _right_  thing to do, for your own sake? Yeah, probably."

Steve struggled to use his tongue; it felt heavy, and there was a lump in his throat. "You're saying Bucky is my dog."

"Man, I don't know what he is," Sam said with a short laugh. "That's for you to figure out. Me? I think he's a little creepy. But that could just be because he tried to kill him twice, which apparently in your book does not constitute bad behavior."

Steve smiled; he couldn't help himself.

"That's what I'm talking about," Sam said, pointing to Steve's face. "That smile. It never used to reach your eyes, but ever since Barnes is back and no longer trying to kill us every chance he gets, it does. So you asked if I think you should leave him alone… I gotta say no. I see what he means to you. You need to go after him.”

It was a blessing. It was proof that Steve wasn’t crazy.

He needed Bucky.  _Needed_  him. And he wasn’t going to stop searching now.

******

Steve started looking harder than ever, mostly because he understood the situation better. Before, he’d thought he had to find Bucky to help him. Now, Steve realized he was looking for Bucky to help himself.

Two months ago he would have balked at that idea, at helping himself. But two months ago Steve hadn’t known the feeling of Bucky’s lips against his, or that sapphire eyes could give away every emotion on Bucky’s otherwise stoic face, or the strength with which Bucky lived even when he was constantly at war with himself. Knowing these things changed a person.

The day after his talk with Sam, Steve searched throughout the city again. After long hours with no results, he returned to his apartment and scribbled out a list of places he planned to look next. The list extended outside the city, through the tri-state area and down to DC, and Steve was just brainstorming where he could get a car for his journey (Stark, definitely Stark. He’d just need to make sure it wasn’t one of those advanced new cars that drove itself, or sometimes turned into the Iron Man suit) when there was a shaky knock on the door.

Steve hadn't been expecting visitors. He wore only sweatpants, and there was a pencil tucked behind his ear. Aware of how likely a target he was, he grabbed his shield, newly fished out of the Potomac, from a hook near the threshold.

There was no need. When he opened the door, an unarmed, wide-eyed Bucky stared back at him.

"Hey," Steve said, heart pounding, pleasure and surprise clouding his voice as he watched Bucky's eyes travelled down his chest. "Come in, please. I promise you can ogle me just as much from inside."

Bucky did come in, but he didn't laugh at Steve's joke.

He walked through the apartment in silence, inspecting every surface like he was memorizing it.

“You live here,” he said, unnecessarily. Steve nodded.

Bucky continued his inspection through the apartment. When he entered the living room and his gaze fell on Steve’s armchair, beside the bookshelf piled high with classics he would never get around to, Bucky stopped dead.

"I’ve been here."

Steve bit his lip.  _You weren’t,_ he wanted to say, because it was true—but it wasn’t the whole truth.

"Steve," Bucky said. He turned to look at him, dragging his gaze from the room before him. "When was I here?"

As calmly as he could, Steve said, "You were never here before, Buck. At my old apartment in DC you payed me a visit once, a few months before we took Hydra down. The furniture’s the same. So maybe it’s… jogging a few memories.”

Steve was an idiot for not realizing that earlier. He should have known it could dredge up old memories in Bucky, but he hadn’t been thinking. Stark had even offered to buy Steve all new furniture, but Steve had declined, the part of him raised in the Great Depression unable to throw away perfectly good chairs.

Bucky's face was a mask. "I came to kill you."

"No," Steve said slowly, shaking his head. "No, not me."

"Someone else, then."

Steve rubbed a hand over his face. "Nick Fury. But he lived, so... maybe you were losing your touch."

Again, Bucky didn't laugh. Steve would need a new line of jokes, because he certainly wasn't finding a new audience.

"I never lost my touch."

"I know, Buck—"

"I could kill you right now."

Steve sighed. "No, you couldn't."

Bucky's eyes flickered. He exhaled heavily, the tension falling out of his shoulders. He slumped the way he used to, before he wore his first uniform. "No, I couldn't."

Steve said, "We could go somewhere else."

"No, it's okay," Bucky said. "It's all right. This is… it’s a nice place.” His eyes flicked around the room again, as if he hadn’t already done a cursory scan for weapons. Much of it he seemed to see it for the first time. “Real furniture and everything."

"We would've given anything for that in the 30s," Steve mused.

That look of relief crossed Bucky's face, the one be got whenever his old memories were confirmed, but it passed just as quickly as it came.

He looked at Steve for a long moment. "You're an idiot."

Steve snorted. "Yeah, I know. What’d I do this time?”

Bucky shook his head and moved closer. "You’re not asking me what I’m doing in your home, for one thing. You’re actually fucking happy I’m here, for another." He crept closer with every word, until their faces were so close Steve could feel his breath on his face. He spoke softly. "I'm worthless. I'm a murderer. And you can't fucking stay away."

“You aren’t worthless," Steve said, helplessly struggling for the right words. Maybe if he still had his shield with note cards on the back, he'd know how to make Bucky see what he did.

Bucky grimaced. "You can't say that. You don't know me anymore."

"I do," Steve insisted, because this, at least, he was sure of. "Bucky, I—I see a lot of myself in you."

Bucky smirked lasciviously, running his tongue over red lips. "You certainly did, didn't you?"

Steve ignored him, desperate as he was to get the words out. "Bucky, I wanted to die."

"We went over this," Bucky said.

"No, I'm not—I'm not saying it right," Steve stumbled. "What I'm trying to say is, we're the same.”

Bucky glared at him. "You're Captain America."

“Um,” Steve said, “yes.”

"Exactly," Bucky muttered, as if that proved something. "See, you can’t say we’re the same, ‘cause you don’t even know me. I don't even know me. So I don't know why the hell you have to keep pretending—"

"I want you to fuck me," Steve said. The words came out in a rush, jumbled, eager to escape after years of thinking about it.

Bucky gaped at him. "You don't want me to fuck you. You  _can't_. You're a hero."

"You're my hero," Steve said, and he felt a rush of relief because that was it: those were the words he’d been looking for. "You saved me from the Potomac. You swam me to shore."

"I was... trying," Bucky said weakly, voice quiet though his eyes were frantic. "There was such a long period of time... I didn't know what I was. There wasn't anyone tying me to myself, my personality, my humanity—and then I saw you..." he trailed off. "I recognized you. For the first time in seventy years, I felt that. Recognition. Like I might’ve still had a mind of my own."

Steve leaned in to kiss him, but Bucky pushed him away. He wasn’t done yet.

He said, "Even when you aren’t trying you’re a hero.”

"I'm not sure what good a hero is if he can't even save his best friend," Steve admitted. "Does it make you feel better that I don't agree with you?"

Bucky shook his head. "No. I—you should be happier. You deserve that, Steve. But maybe—you don't realize how good you are, but you're so—you're amazing, so..." He stumbled over his words. "Maybe there are other people out there. Who think they're pieces of shit, but they're more than that."

There was a good chance Steve was going to cry.

"Bucky," he said, voice cracking. "I need you—I need you to hold me."

Bucky barely hesitated before wrapping his arms around Steve, who buried his face in his shoulders. "Like we used to," Bucky said softly. "Remember? All those times I held you like this?"

Steve did remember, but he still said, "Tell me."

"I remember the first time I held you," Bucky said, rubbing Steve's back in slow circles, his metal hand so gentle. "We must've been ten or eleven, and you tripped—you fell down a few feet outside the school building, and you asked me to bring you home to your ma, so I held you up and I helped you walk home. And then the next time, a few years later, you got into the fight with that kid who stole your old deck of cards, and he hit you hard in the chest so I had to check you all over, make sure you had no broken bones, and when you didn't I was so relieved I had to wrap my arms around you. I couldn't believe how thin you were."

Steve hummed softly, overcome with the way Bucky's voice sounded telling him stories.

"And then?" Steve prompted, because he was afraid Bucky might stop hugging Steve when the stories were over.

"And then I started holding you a lot more, because you kept getting into more and more fights, and someone needed to treat you in a way that didn't hurt you—and I didn't want—Steve, I never wanted to hurt you, I promise, I never would've wanted to hurt you, you're my pal. And I—I started holding you for myself, making up excuses so I could wrap my arms around you, because I always felt safer when you're around, and stronger, and more like myself. Like Bucky Barnes. Even before, but especially now."

He was shaking, arms holding Steve so tightly it was beginning to hurt. Steve pulled back to look at him.

"I know, Buck," he said, hands cupping Bucky's stubbled chin. "I know."

Their lips touched and Bucky gave a soft sigh, hands fisting in Steve's hair to pull him closer.

"You meant it, Stevie?" He asked, desperate. "When you said you wanted me to have you?"

Just the thought of it, after so many years in yearning, made Steve gasp. The way the proposition sounded coming from Bucky made his knees weak.

"Yes, Bucky," Steve promised, squeezing Bucky’s hand. "Need you inside me. Been wanting it for so long."

Bucky let out a low whine, hands skating over Steve's shoulders, already exposed since he wasn't wearing a shirt. He didn't seem intent on much else yet, though: his hands traveled across Steve's pectorals, coming down to rub his nipples and then touch the skin of his abdomen.

"Oh, man," Bucky breathed, pupils dilated. "You really did get big, huh, Stevie?"

"Mm," Steve hummed, enjoying the feeling of Bucky's hands brushing against his skin, hard from callouses and metal, warm and curious as they toyed with Steve's nipples. Steve groaned.

"Always used to think I'd break you doing this," Bucky said absently, hands dropping down to Steve's hips so he could push their groins together through the fabric of their clothes.

Steve’s blood rushed south at the idea of Bucky thinking about them doing this before. He wondered briefly if there were times when it had been on both their minds, and how much better it would have been back then if they’d just vocalized what they wanted. "You'll be breaking me in," he offered, and Bucky moaned. His hands clenched Steve's hips tighter.

"I always wanted to," Bucky said, "used to watch you when you walked and think about that tight little hole. Wondered if I'd ever get a chance at it."

Steve said, "Here's your chance," and he ripped Bucky's pants off. They wouldn't be wearable again; they were torn straight through. But Steve wanted Bucky to face who they were now: bigger, and stronger, unlikely to break under physical strain. Steve could take Bucky now, could have all the things he'd wanted when he was small and weak.

Bucky seemed to get the message. He dragged Steve's pants off, too, and before Steve even knew what he was doing, he was pushing them both down onto the floor.

"No!" Bucky said abruptly, and Steve, intent on his quest to grind their boxer-covered cocks together, stopped immediately. "I don't want to do it on the floor."

Steve stared at him. "We did it in a bathroom. I think the floor is a step up."

"That was different," Bucky insisted. "This is you. I want to be good for you. I want to be really good. I want to do it on your bed."

"You—” Steve paused. "Okay." He offered a hand to help Bucky off the floor, and Bucky took it even though he didn't need to. As they walked the few feet to the bedroom, Bucky helped them both shed their underwear.

Steve guided Bucky to his bed.

"Fuck," Bucky said, voice low with desire, eyes travelling over Steve's body as he spread out across the sheets. "Steve, you’re fucking perfect."

“I’m not, but thanks,” Steve said. "Jeeze, Bucky, I wanted you to see this. I wanted you in my home. I did pretty well for myself—considering." He hadn't actually meant to ask for Bucky's approval, but it was clear to both of them that he was doing exactly that.

Bucky gave it to him in the form of kisses all the way up his body, from Steve's toes to his lips, all the while murmuring how well Steve did, how proud Bucky was, how he wished he could have been there when Steve was adjusting to this century, as Bucky slid up the bed and settled on top of him.

"You wanted me here, huh, Steve?" Bucky said, licking his way up Steve's abdomen. "In your home. You wanted me to see how pretty you look all spread out across the bed you sleep in every night. You wanted me to see you where you feel safe and warm."

Moaning at the sensation as Bucky nibbled the skin on his chest, Steve nodded.

"Well I'm here now, pal," Bucky said, speaking into Steve's skin right above his left nipple. "I'm here now, I'm in your home, and I want to get inside you."

Steve's hips bucked off the bed.

Bucky tsked. "Uh-uh, Steve. We ain’t gonna rush into it. Can you do that? Can you be good for me?"

Steve gasped, "Yeah. Wanna be good."

"You are. You are," Bucky soothed, sliding his hand over Steve's cock in agonizing slowness.

He didn't waste much time tugging Steve to full hardness before he was reaching for the lube on the bedside table and lathering his fingers with it. For all he talked about wanting Steve to be good and slow, he was awfully eager.

"How do you feel?" Bucky asked, kissing Steve's upper thigh as he pushed one finger inside him. Unconsciously, Steve parted his legs even further. He couldn't help falling open even wider when Bucky talked like that, so much more gentle than he'd ever been with Steve before. He was exposing himself to Bucky, physically and mentally, and Bucky wasn't running.

Steve spread his legs as wide as he could.

"Feels perfect," Steve muttered, arching as Bucky added another digit. "'M ready."

Bucky didn't seem to agree. He watched where his fingers disappeared into Steve's body hungrily, and when Steve was loose enough to take more, he dragged his left hand away from Steve's prick so that he could slide a metal finger beside his two flesh ones.

The finger curled to press against Steve's prostate, and he howled.

"Got you nice and wet down here, baby." Bucky messaged Steve's prostate again before pulling his fingers out and moving up the bed so he could kiss Steve on the lips. "You wanna take my cock now?"

"Ung, yeah, please," Steve whined. He felt the slow burn of Bucky pushing into him and cried out, fingers twisting in the sheets.

Bucky gave him a while to adjust before he began moving, and when he finally did start to fuck Steve it was more gently than Steve ever would have imagined. Even Bucky's fingers hadn't been so careful; but with his cock, much bigger than they had been, he seemed terrified of hurting Steve.

"Harder," Steve pleaded, and Bucky picked up the pace. He still fucked him slowly, and moaned through that long slide inside, but at the end of each thrust he snapped his hips, getting further and further into Steve each time.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," Bucky panted. "Never gonna hurt you. Just want to be good for you—need to be—"

Overwhelmed with sensation, Steve couldn't respond. If he'd been able to speak he might have said, _I trust you._ Instead, he laced a hand through Bucky's hair and cried out each time Bucky hit his prostate.

Steve was pretty sure he was going to go crazy with the pace they were at, but the tension dissolved as Bucky wrapped his left hand around Steve's prick. He spent a whole two seconds wondering if he should be worried about something so strong wrapped around the most fragile part of him, and then Bucky captured his lips and increased his speed and Steve decided that, actually, he'd trust his whole life in the palm of that hand.

Now that Bucky had found his prostate he kept pushing, hitting that spot over and over again, forcing Steve to the edge. When he finally did come he didn't announce it outside of a long moan, couldn't speak after being fucked so thoroughly. Bucky followed not long after the sensation of Steve's body clenching around his cock.

They both collapsed against the bed, panting and sweaty. Steve could barely think straight, though his body was already healing itself, eliminating any residual pain from where Bucky had entered him and removing the ache from his leg muscles, which were stiff from being wrapped around Bucky for so long.

Through his post-orgasm haze, Steve turned toward Bucky, intending to kiss him again, but paused at the confused expression on Bucky’s face. His body was relaxed, more relaxed than Steve had seen it since the war, but his face was pulled tight.

A voice in the back of Steve’s head murmured that he was getting ready to run again, but Steve shoved it down.

“Bucky?” Steve asked. Electric blue eyes blinked heavily at him.

“I don’t…” Bucky trailed off, his frown a thick red bow and his brow furrowed. “I don’t understand why you’d let me do… that.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked, bewildered. “You’re my best friend. I lo—I trust you. And I wanted it. Why wouldn’t I let you?”

“Because I’m,” Bucky gestured aimlessly, “I was the Winter Soldier for so long. I could have lost myself, made it bad for you.”

“I trust you,” Steve repeated, holding Bucky’s eye contact. He bit his lip. “You think you don’t deserve me?”

“I just. I’m not a good person.”

“You keep saying that, but I don’t believe it. You were so gentle with me, Buck. That wasn’t the Winter Soldier back there promising he wouldn’t hurt me, that was you.”

“Of course you’re going to say that, though,” Bucky muttered. “Out of everyone, you seem to be the least sure what I’m capable of.”

Steve snorted. “Are you kidding? Bucky,  _you_  seem to be the least sure of what you’re capable of. And you aren’t giving yourself enough damn credit. You’ve been out of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters for months now, and you haven’t hurt a single thing, because when you did the things you did, it wasn’t you.”

Unconvinced, Bucky rolled over to stare at the ceiling.

Steve sighed. Perhaps it was time to make Bucky understand what Steve meant when he said he’d fucked up, too.

"I remember saying to Dr. Erskine before the serum that I didn’t want to kill anyone. And I didn’t. I hated bullies, but I never wanted to be a killer. After you... after you fell, things changed. For me. I went on a, um, a kind of rampage," Steve said sheepishly. “I killed my way up to Hydra's front door."

"That's different," Bucky said impatiently. "Those were Hydra's people. They were evil, they deserved to die. I killed innocent people."

"Are politicians ever really innocent?" Steve joked. Bucky glared at him. "All right, I mean, that's true. The people I killed would probably have killed me, if they had the chance. Even... during the war, the Germans in France, maybe they deserved to die. I don't know. I don't  _know_ , Bucky, but that's what makes this a problem, that's the reason I feel so—" he huffed out a sharp breath. "I didn't ask questions before I pulled the trigger. You were gone and I was, I was all beat up about it. It wasn't all about self-preservation, either, because I had my shield and my fists and there's no way any of those guys could have taken me in a fight, but..." he sighed, looking guilty. "It was revenge. Not all of it, but some of it. Some of those people died because I thought you did. And I think that even if I knew you lived, I would have done it anyway, because every time I think of what Zola did to you I could kill a hundred Hydra agents all over again."

They were both quiet for a second. Steve reveled in the feeling of finally verbalizing the thoughts that kept him awake at night.

Bucky tried to take it in. He cleared his throat and spoke then, but with less surety, less conviction than he had before. "You help more people than you hurt."

"I don't think that cancels anything out," Steve said.

"No, I guess not," Bucky murmured. "I never realized—" he cut himself off. "I just never realized."

"You're not the only one who's fucked up, Bucky."

Surprisingly, Bucky laughed. It sounded like salvation. "I didn't know I'd be so glad to hear that."

Another moment passed in silence, this one less strained than before.

Eventually Bucky said, "I knew I lost myself. I didn't know how or why or who I used to be, but sometimes something would happen and I would get a feeling, this idea that I'd experienced that before... that something was off." He stared into the distance. "I had a mission in Brooklyn once and there was that feeling the whole time. I couldn't shake it. It felt wrong that I was there. I think I wasn't supposed to be there as the Soldier. It's Bucky's territory, you know?"

Steve reached a hand out and rested it on Bucky's shoulder, right on the edge where skin met metal. His skin was hot and sweaty, long hair clinging to his neck and chest, and Steve guided it out of the way like it was fragile, making room for himself to snuggle closer and curl himself around Bucky’s side. Steve didn’t have enough experience with this to know if he was a post-coital cuddler, or if it was only because of how exposed he felt after giving himself fully to Bucky, but all he wanted to do was close himself around Bucky in a protective shell.

He wrapped an arm around Bucky’s chest, but the tight hug had the opposite effect of what Steve wanted. Rather than relaxing into him, Bucky tensed.

“Buck?” Steve mumbled, eyes travelling sleepily over Bucky’s body and settling on his big blue eyes.

They were shadowed and downcast. Carefully, Bucky untangled himself from Steve’s grasp. He cleared his throat. “I should go. Before you get too comfortable.”

“What?” Steve asked, perplexed, disbelief flooding him as Bucky’s words registered. “You’re leaving?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, still not meeting Steve’s eyes. He swung his legs down and got off the bed, looking around for his clothes before remembering they were in the other room. “I gotta go. I’ll… I’ll see you around.”

“Bucky, wait,” Steve said, shocked, scrambling to follow him into the living room. “I thought you were going to stay. I thought this meant something.”

Now Bucky did meet his gaze, but his eyes were emotionless. He didn’t speak again, just stepped into his clothing and headed for the door, ignoring Steve’s pleas and frustrated confusion. He nodded at Steve in a silent goodbye, and then he left.

And Steve had integrity, if nothing else. He refused to follow after Bucky, whining like a kicked puppy, not if Bucky was going to leave after what they’d just shared. So he sat at the window to watch Bucky catch a cab outside. Then he slumped against his living room wall and barely managed to refrain from punching a hole into every available surface.

******

It didn’t occur to Steve until he woke up the next morning that he might not see Bucky again for a while. The night before had been so strange—from their tender fuck to Steve’s confession, and then Bucky’s abrupt departure—but from what he could gather, Bucky needed space. He could only handle so much emotion at once before he became overwhelmed, and that was why he had to leave Steve alone right after making him think that maybe Bucky loved him.

At least, that was what Steve told himself all night, and into the morning. Thinking about the way Bucky left had kept him awake, unable to stop the tornado of distress.

Eventually, just before dawn broke outside his bedroom window, Steve had managed to fall asleep.  His usual pattern of early rising stretched into the morning, and after only a few hours of fitful sleep he padded into the kitchen to make coffee.

If he lied to himself he could pretend it was only the lack of sleep that made his head ache and his chest hurt like he still had asthma.

In truth, it felt as though his heart had been ripped out and squeezed bloody in a metal fist.

But he wasn’t thinking about that. He was making coffee and picking up the newspaper and sitting down at the kitchen table and putting his mind on anything else.

Not long after Steve sat down to read the news, Sam called, but for the first time Steve didn’t feel like talking about it. He didn’t answer the phone. Sam followed up with a text about a morning run together, which Steve also ignored.

When there was a knock on Steve’s door a few minutes later, he assumed that was Sam too, come to overthrow Steve’s attempts at brooding.

After a moment of debating whether or not he should pretend to still be asleep, Steve rose to answer the door. He was fully dressed from the night before. Bucky had left him feeling raw and exposed, and after he’d left Steve had covered himself in layers to compensate for how vulnerable he felt.

That extra layer of clothing didn’t help him when he opened the door and saw Bucky standing there.

He looked like he hadn’t slept all night, and his face was stretched taut in apprehension. He made no move to come in, just stood outside Steve’s door and choked out, “I fucked up.”

He had. Steve invited him inside, anyway.

The moment the door shut beside them he tackled Bucky into a tight hug.

“Thought you might be gone for good this time,” Steve admitted, head buried in Bucky’s shoulder.

“Couldn’t stay away,” Bucky said, looking relieved, the shadow of a smirk ghosting over his lips. He pulled away from Steve to reveal a large, white box in one hand. “I, um, brought breakfast.”

Steve warmed from the inside out. It was like all his open wounds from the night before had instantly healed—but that was dangerous. He couldn’t have them ripped open again.  Not so soon after he’d recovered from the last time Bucky left.

“Bucky,” Steve began, steeling himself, “If you’re going to come back here, I need to know you’re going to stay. I can’t keep losing my best friend like this. Last night—that meant something to me, and when you left, I…” he exhaled sharply. “You know I’m going to keep letting you in, no matter how many times you leave. Because when you’re gone there’s this part of me that isn’t whole, and it doesn’t get filled just by looking at us at the Smithsonian, or reading your file, or checking in with S.H.I.E.L.D. to see if you’re okay.”

Bucky watched him silently, face unreadable, eyes wide and fragile.

“I just—I’m not good with words,” Steve said, with an exasperated laugh. “You know I’m not good with words—even when we were younger, that’s why I only fought with my fists.”

Bucky’s gaze dropped from Steve’s face. He looked guilty. “I didn’t want to leave. I never wanted to leave.”

“I tried to save you.”

“I know that, Steve, but there wasn’t anything you could have done.”

“I could have tried,” Steve said stubbornly. “I could have went back to look for you, made sure—”

“You can’t save everyone.”

It was true. But it was also the first time Steve had heard that.

“It isn’t your fault, okay? It’s not your fault what happened to me, and it’s not—it’s not your fault I keep leaving.”

Steve shook his head, disbelieving, so Bucky plundered on. “Listen, you did what you had to. And you did so well. Steve, you save so many people. I’m proud of you, you know that? I’m so proud of you. And I’m gonna keep saying it ‘til it sticks in your thick skull, too, because I know you don’t believe me.”

He handed the box of food to Steve, who refused to take it, eyes on Bucky’s face.

“Open the damn box, Steve, I spent a lot of money on that.” When Steve still didn’t budge, he said, softer, “I’m okay now. You hear me? I’m all right. I’m here. I’m not leaving you again.”

He held out the box again, and this time Steve took it. He didn't actually want to look away from Bucky—he wasn't completely convinced Bucky wouldn't disappear the moment he did—but Bucky was watching him with eager eyes, like this was his apology and he was still waiting for Steve to accept it, so he tore his gaze away and opened the box.

It was packed full with more food than even Steve could eat, from soft breads to Napoleon cake, and a long list of things Steve had never seen before. Certainly nothing they would have eaten in their childhood. Steve wondered if Bucky even knew what he was ordering, or if he just pointed to everything behind the baker's glass and packed it away, hoping for something Steve would like.

Suddenly it occurred to Steve that this was the longest they'd spoken so far without someone getting fucked in the meantime. He studied Bucky face but it was guileless. Curious, Steve glanced at Bucky's crotch, searching for stretched fabric.

Bucky caught the direction of his gaze and grinned. "How about we have breakfast first, pal."

They did, and Steve marveled at how easily they could fall into domesticity. It was such a sharp contrast to the way they'd been with each other since Bucky had been released from S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, but it felt right.

It was a reflection of the way they’d lived when they were teenagers, when Bucky had made food for Steve after his mother died. But this was different, because they’d lived through more than either of them could have imagined, and they'd felt each other from the inside, and the food was much better.

"I still don't know where you live," Steve said, when his stomach was so full he couldn't eat any more.

"Some S.H.I.E.L.D.-sponsored hovel on the Lower East Side, covered with hidden cameras like they think I don't know they're watching me," Bucky said, looking unimpressed. "We can go tomorrow, if you aren't busy saving the world. I need a haircut, anyway."

"Hate to break it to you, Buck, but I'm probably not the best person for that job."

"Yeah, you are,” Bucky said. And that was that.

As it turned out, he didn't need to worry about going back to his bugged apartment. Later that day Steve procured a pair of scissors and went to work on Bucky's hair, cutting it to just below his ears, where Bucky wanted it, and then Steve went about showing Bucky the piles of books he'd acquired while Bucky had been in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s psychiatric unit. He hadn’t read a single one yet, always hoping Bucky would come back to him and they would have the chance to read them together.

He revealed his collection of movies next, all untouched, and Bucky gaped at how much Steve had invested in his coming home. How he had trusted that Bucky would be stable enough to sit and watch a movie with him. How he hadn’t worried for a second that Bucky would never get better, that he would be a brainwashed killer for the rest of his life.

"You're an idiot," Bucky said, to cover up the fact that his eyes were wet. "What if I hate all these movies?"

Steve shrugged. "I guess we'll see."

He grabbed the first movie he saw and popped it into the DVD player, then sat down on the couch.

When he turned his face to grin at Bucky, he was rewarded with the happiest expression he’d seen on Bucky’s face since before America joined World War II.

Bucky was straddling his lap and catching his lips before the movie even started.

Steve kissed him long and slow and deep.  He didn't even open his mouth under Bucky's at first, glad just to feel the way their lips molded together. That first swipe of Bucky's tongue came to caress Steve's lips, and when they finally opened their mouths to each other it was like coming home. Steve kissed Bucky more gently than he'd done anything in a while, one hand lightly carding through Bucky's hair while the other stroked his cheek.

They could have been like that for ten minutes or two hours, Steve wasn't sure. All he knew was that, for the first time, he didn't feel rushed in this, didn't worry about how soon Bucky would run when they were finished. He’d run so many times, after all, but he kept coming back. And now, this time, he was back for good. Steve could tell, because was finally comfortable with himself, too. Neither of them had a reason to leave.

“Hey,” Bucky said, sometime in-between the second and third movie, when Steve walked into the room with a bowl of fresh popcorn. He brandished a small vial in one hand. “I brought this. I thought maybe… if you still wanted to.”

He didn’t finish the thought; he didn’t have to. In his hand was the vitamin e Steve had first seen at the diner, the one Bucky had said went on scars, to heal them.

For once, Steve didn’t wish he had a written speech on notecards. This, he thought, should be done without words. Bucky’s shirt was already on the floor, and Steve could see exactly where the pale lines criss-crossed over his back. From a whip, perhaps, or a knife, but Steve refused to think about how they’d gotten there, to let those people have this moment. It was not about them. It was about Bucky, spread out before him on the couch, and Steve gently rubbing oil over his skin. It was about the proximity of their bodies, and Bucky’s trust that Steve wouldn’t let anyone hurt him even with his guard down, and the ease at which he relaxed into Steve’s decorative throw pillows, even if he’d made fun of them earlier that day.

Two sides of the same coin, Sam had said. Steve mused over the words as he massaged a thick white scar down Bucky’s spine. He still wasn’t sure of it was true, but he did know this: Bucky was here to stay, and Steve finally felt like he deserved it.


End file.
